It’s hard to tell where USD hires its proofreaders. Jill Callison caught USD’s marketing department committing this roadside assault on apostrophes:
Dakota’s… Dakota’s what? The apostrophe signifies possession, never plurality
USD blushed at its students’ and friends’ grammatical dismay this morning with a tweet promising a new billboard soon. Perhaps USD will hire some SDSU English majors, whose rigorous training would inform that that they could save USD’s pride by inserting “[sic]” to signal the error was all Forbes’ (or Forbes’s—take your pick, though Forbes favors the former, while I like the latter!).
But don’t just whitewash the current board’s apostrophe. USD’s writers’ greater error may be those improper quotation marks. Forbes’s 2015 university rankings does not use the phrase “Best in the Dakota’s” or “Best in the Dakotas” at any point. The only place I find that exact phrase in print with reference to Forbes’s rankings is in USD’s own August 4 press release and the press’s subsequent coverage of USD’s staff’s own trumpeting of those rankings. In other words, none of USD’s advertisement’s punctuation is correct.
Oh yeah: USD’s rank is 411 out of 650; Augie’s, 423; UND’s, 444; NDSU’s, 452; and SDSU’s 483. Fourteen of Minnesota’s colleges and universities beat USD’s rankings, including Carleton at 30 and the Twin Cities’ U of M campus at 130.
Happy Holiday’s From The Schreck’s!
“The highest ranked institution of higher learning in the Dakotas according to Forbes’ listing but not as high as some schools in Minnesota where the state invests way more into higher education (which explains the divergent rankings)” doesn’t exactly fit on a billboard. Oh, and SDSU graduates shouldn’t crow to loudly considering their Jackrabbit Preview a while back claimed on the front cover that “Friday’s are fun around here.”
*too loudly
sooo, they should just change it to “Top 15 Minnesota’s”……???
people get so possessive of a postropheeeezes.
“Friday’s are…”? Oh, my alma mater’s killing me, too!
But Phil’s funny! :-)
Was Lawrence and Schilling part of this effort. At least it gets USD some free publicity. USD, Best in the Dakota’s; we’re not jerking you.
Lawrence & Schiller for sure. Never been very happy with any of their marketing efforts for USD. I’m always confused why USD keeps them around. SDSU also had apostrophe issues with their “Friday’s are fun around here” preview piece last year. I am assuming also L&S.
You left out Lamar! A giant print business without grammar skills? Who pays for the rewrite? Oh yeah, us.
Barry, would you believe I was trying to turn over a new leaf and focus my criticism on incompetent public institutions rather than the noble private sector? ;-)
South Dakota university system has had a collection of really dumb ads of all kinds. The one that was too true, but not good advertising was SDSU’s “You can go anywhere from here” ad.
I miss that SDSU line, Douglas. It was simple, true, and easily demonstrable.